Well that’s quite an intro to the new album of Damnation AD called In this Life Or The Next. Kicking of with the intro ‘Exspecta Taut Abbysus’ Damnation AD gets you ready for an album of good old metalcore. The intro doesn’t sound very special but the eruption of sound during the beginning of the second song called ‘Knot’ promises a lot. A little more speed than average but still the brutal voice of Michael McTernan that gives me the feeling I got run over by a dump truck after the first song.

 

When the album continues Damnation AD slows down to the old tempo. With grooving riffs that sound so dirty that even the drycleaner would be scared of it. They take over your mind and drag you into this album. Kicking you senseless till the end of the album to finally spit you out and left you bruised and battered behind. This is how Damnation AD is supposed to sound.

 

It was pretty obvious Damnation AD had to come out with something special to overthrow their greatest album Kingdom Of Lost Souls. So the addition of several guest vocalists on the album is always a nice extra. This resulted in songs with: John Henri from Darkest Hour, Carl Buechner from Earth Crisis/Freya, Wes Eisold from Give Up The Ghost and Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. Every song has a great extra dimension except ‘If You Could Remember’. In a way it’s just not right to hear those juicy poprock vocals on a Damnation AD album.

 

In This Life Or The Next is a great album that can live up to the standards of Damnation AD but it didn’t overthrow their greatest album ever. Especially when you consider that the songs ‘Rain As My Veil’ , ‘The Hanged Man’ and ‘Addiction’ are previous released. Luckily enough the latest song, the title track of the album, just gives that final kick where you were waiting for and pulls the total score a bit higher.